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ISBN:

978-3-540-72725-5

Abstract:

People are an intrinsic part of a Disappearing Computer environment; it
is their actions and behavior, their wishes and needs that shape the
environment. People have always been building “ecologies” in their
living spaces, by selecting objects and then arranging them in ways
that best serve their activities and their self-expression. According
to the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) vision (ISTAG 2006) people will be
able to build more advanced “ecologies”, also known as UbiComp applications, by configuring and using “augmented” objects; these objects may be totally new ones or updated versions of existing ones.
An important new aspect of AmI environments
is the merging of physical and digital spaces, i.e. tangible objects
and physical environments are acquiring digital representations. The
traditional computer disappears in the environment, as the everyday
objects in it become augmented with Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) components (i.e. sensors, actuators, processor,
memory, communication modules, etc.) and can receive, store, process
and transmit information, thus becoming AmI objects.